


Not like you

by cassanabaratheon



Category: Home Fires, Home Fires (ITV)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-28
Updated: 2015-06-28
Packaged: 2018-04-06 15:47:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 400
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4227657
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cassanabaratheon/pseuds/cassanabaratheon
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Then she heard the words that she had, for her entire life, worked so tirelessly to avoid, spilling out of Frances Barden’s mouth, so simply, so carelessly, as if those words did not lash at her harder than any whip.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Not like you

**Author's Note:**

> takes place between and after episode 4/5

She had never wanted to be like the other ladies of Great Paxford, never wanted the type of lives that they led. It suited them but never her. She always prided herself on being apart – being  _above_ – a leader and a role model within the community, a voice of authority and respect. Opposition had always been there, and it would have been tedious if there was none, but it normally fell away after a time and the status quo remained. She had not considered the alternative this time; that the new WI would thrive quite well without her influence. It pricked her like a thorn in the side to see herself apart – but not above – left out on the outskirts. But she was Joyce Cameron and no one would see the ache that it caused beneath the high tilt of her chin and her straightened spine.

Then came the night of the unveiling of the Barden’s air raid shelter and the impromptu drill for which the memory bit at her with shame. They saw her fear, they saw her  _weakness_ , and they seized upon it. They looked at her with kindness, softness even, nodding to themselves as she walked by; as if they could now relate to her, understand her. Her skin prickled at the mere thought. They did not know how, when they smiled at her, it took all of her control not to slap their faces, to rid herself of  _those_  smiles. Then she heard the words that she had, for her entire life, worked so tirelessly to avoid, spilling out of Frances Barden’s mouth, so simply, so  _carelessly_ , as if those words did not lash at her harder than any whip.

_“…you’re human after all, like everyone else.”_

If Sarah Collingborne, (or indeed any one from that little group), had said that, she would have easily arched her eyebrow and brushed the comment aside. But from Frances, the woman that she had, for a brief moment, considered to be the same as she, it was almost unbearable to hear.

_“But I don’t_ **want** _to be like everyone else. I never have.”_

Yet even when she told her this, her own private motto, there is no sense of recognition in the other woman. She was not like her and Joyce knew that there never would be; a fate alone that she resigned herself to a long time ago. 


End file.
